Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball2
In other words, if your hourly has actually been 3bb/hour, and 1800 hours is what it takes to make your living expenses, how CAN you not be playing more? Kind of seems like a thinly veiled brag there and basically saying you don't understand why people making less has to work more, but you already know that.
There's things that are a lot more important to being a successful poker player than being good at poker. Winrates are a gigantic pissing contest. Just to put this in perspective based on my own real life experiences -
My first year or so in Vegas I absolutely crushed it. Everything, volume , hourly, focus, happiness, etc. It was a brand new environment for me and everything was exciting, fun etc. This is after playing a few years at Foxwoods.
I did not pocket that much cash because despite me being in the poker room and making a lot of money due to hourly and hours, I spent like an absolute idiot. I'm fortunate I never hit the wall so in that sense I do appreciate the fact that I "ran good". I made massive car payments that ate up a big chunk, tons of partying, ate out every meal, other stuff, whatever.
So even though by this volume + hourly metric that people ITT seem to harp over and over, I didn't really "make" a bunch of money because I spent like an idiot. I definitely do not regret this because I had an awesome time as a bright eyed young man in Las Vegas, but this is a whole other (futile) discussion as to whether I should regret this or not.
I just want to point out that even though now I don't play a ton of hours, I have a nice nest egg from saving/investing/managing myself like a 25 year old (semi) adult, rather than a 22 year old kid spending money like crazy.
So even if someone's winrate isn't spectacular, you can more than managably make up for this lack of poker skill in other areas. There are tons of boring nits in Vegas that fit this description perfectly. They basically suck at the technical aspect of poker, but they save, play a decent amount and save. They are good "poker managers", but not good poker players. When I say "boring nit", that isn't even really meant to be fully derogatory, it's just them surviving, which is commendable when your only true income comes from poker.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Siculamente
If you were like 45 and unemployable I would get behind this.
But if someone is young and thinks they're capable enough to crush for lol 20bb hr , they would be smart enough to know what a miserable, scummy place the gambling world is.
And how important it would be to just get the amount of money they need to do something awesome with their lives and get the **** out.
Which means they would take a good crack at it at least for a couple years try and put in some impressive volume.
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But you're right though. I have no idea what your goals are. Everyone's tastes are different.
With all the stuff you say about how miserable this industry is (I agree with you) I'm surprised you apparently don't mind spending more time in this industry than you would if you planned a little better.
I don't really feel like discussing all my own personal finances, but I'm getting there at a fine pace, believe me. Mostly because I put in hours when I needed to.
In regards to planning, early 20s kid that keep most their net worth on them in cash make poor decisions, what can I say. When I was 21 or 22 the last thing I was thinking about was my annual IRA % return. Kids gonna be kids and that's perfectly fine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllJackedUp
The people that don't see a problem spending that much time in a casino are usually:
1) young and idealistic wanna be pros (who haven't actually experienced 1000s of hrs yet)
2) degens who just love being in and around action
This is as accurate as a post as I've read in this thread.
Whenever I see the "Play more hours!" vs "Play less hours!" debate - the idealistic newbies and degens are on the play more hours side, the experienced professionals with longevity are on the other side.
Marathon. Not sprint.